PepsiCo Creator Division Develops Immersive Creative Experiences

(Food Dive, by Carolyn Heneghan) – “Creator is about transformation in marketing, how we embrace risk, deploy disruptive technology, and connect with consumers in new and different ways,” Seth Kaufman, CMO for PepsiCo North America Beverages, told Fast Company. “Consumers are on multiple devices. Creator helps us stay on the leading edge of culture and break through the clutter. In today’s crowded communication landscape, connecting with consumers is hard, so we look for things like that to tap into their passions.”

With the Pepsi Art Dome, PepsiCo and Likuid Art were careful to not create an explicit commercial for the company but to build something that seamlessly integrated with the rest of the festival’s art pieces. They used only “subtle branding towards the end,” Chris Saunders, Likuid Art’s creative director, told Fast Company.

What’s also unique about Creator is that it tends to act more like a startup itself rather than a division of a major corporation, wherein the staff are constantly experimenting, learning, and updating each idea that comes their way.

“For a Fortune 50 packaged goods company, that’s a massive shift and a great way to think about innovation—seeing something, learning from it, putting something out into the market, learning from that experience, and making it better the next time,” Kaufman told Fast Company. “We’ll take what we did at Voodoo, which was incredibly successful, build on it, and the next thing we put into the marketplace will be more effective.”

The Pepsi Art Dome was the first of three installations that PepsiCo will launch in partnership with Live Nation Entertainment. The next will be at Farmborough Festival in New York in June.